


Syzygy

by xenontrioxide



Series: Sunrise [2]
Category: Horizon: Zero Dawn (Video Game)
Genre: Cancer, Character Study, Coming of Age, Death, F/M, Family Dynamics, Motherhood
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-21
Updated: 2019-07-21
Packaged: 2020-07-10 09:15:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,342
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19903348
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xenontrioxide/pseuds/xenontrioxide
Summary: syzygy : the nearly straight-line configuration of three celestial bodies (such as the sun, moon, and earth during a solar or lunar eclipse)An exploration of some of the key loves in Avad's life.





	Syzygy

Of all the noble houses, there was no question that the Khane Rudash were blessed by the Sun beyond compare.

Lhavad and Renva themselves were born to nobility, with properties that stretched the length of the Sundom. There were rumors, even, that they had the favor of Radiant Hivas himself. For them to be joined seemed only natural. Equally natural, then, was the birth of children to continue their growing dynasty. Fortune was with them there, too, as they were gifted three children that matched the light of day: Dawn, Noon, and Dusk.

First came Araht, who was born with strong cries that were a mere portent of the talented skills with oration he’d develop nearly as soon as his cries became words. With dark eyes and dusky blond-brown hair, he was every bit his father’s son. Business was his calling, and under Llavad's tutelage, their holdings quickly grew into an empire of prosperity. After the glorious day of his wedding to a young woman of equal social standing, it wasn't long at all before he left Meridian to seek new lands they could claim - and properties at Sunfall. Their ritual at home shifted, of course, because Araht was no longer a common visitor in their estate. Instead, he would regularly send birds, their spindly legs wrapped in parchment that detailed updates about his life. But there, too, in the footnotes, he filled each word with love.

The twittering of their music at the windowsill became a welcome sound in their home.

The second son, Mavat, came into the world more loudly than his brother – quick to wail at the slightest displeasure. He had quizzical brown eyes and studied the world around him long before he could understand it, slow to learn speech and seeming to prefer his youth as a feral child. The impact he left on their family, though, was no less lasting.

While Araht found ease with the pen, Mavat was a talented hunter. That wild sense of drama was quick to make him a household name, nearly from the moment he could lift a bow. The first time he shot a Glinthawk from the air, he was no older than 11. His reason? Quite simply he intended to present a gift to his mother crafted with its glimmering feathers.

But it was their third child, a daughter, who proved beyond doubt that their house shone brightly with the Sun's favor.

Kharai's birth came easy, with hardly a whimper. It was two years after Mavat's birth, but she was every bit their opposite. With eyes the color of caramel and flicked with desert glass, she was further set apart with hair so fair it might as well have been spun from pure gold. Beneath the Sun she would first burn an angry, painful red. This would then heal and give way to a dusting of freckles, little dark marks that Renva caressed and called 'Sun’s kisses'.

There was no question that she was a beautiful girl, who in her sex and appearance opened new doors to the Khane Rudash that had been bolted for her brothers. Her education focused on the crafts that were expected of Carja wives, her careful stitching fine, even, and every bit as secure as the seamstresses who instructed her. She took things a step further and wove little silver threads that caught the light like starlight in the flowing cloth she favored in constructing gowns. At her sixth summer, she already had a following among the nobles, who were delighted by the idea of dressing their children in patterns wrought by a child herself. 

What a concept! 

Nor just her birthright that found her work in the upper echelons of society. Indeed, Kharai had an eye second to no other for color and design. By her twelfth summer, her name was whispered at grand balls among ladies who sought to include unique and personal pieces in their wardrobes. Her fingers bled, then calloused, so long did she spend stitching.

Between the three children, each rose in their own way to their station. The Khane Rudash empire continued to grow.

Kharai found that she wasn’t satisfied simply with designing and sewing gowns. Yes, she had skill with it - but she couldn't help but feel something - something key - was missing.

Perhaps it was Mavat’s influence, and his gladiatorial performances in the Sun-Ring, that helped that hunger grow in her. He had a flashy, theatrical fighting style that was in favor among the hunters of the Lodge. That was when she decided her attention and skill were better suited to fashioning armor. Not only that, considering even the idea of it thrilled her like little else had for _months._ Her initial goal was simple: she wanted her brother to dress in _her_ designs, like the women at court. What she also wanted to know was that even if she couldn't wield a spear or draw a bow on a moving target, she could still protect him. For nobility, machine hunting was a show, not a livelihood as it may have been for outlanders of all tribes.

Commissions for gowns - endlessly embroidered, ruffled, decorated with feathers and machine metal carved to fine decoration - only served to fill her coffers. With time, she found herself satisfied with her skill: finally, she felt confident that she would be able to design armor that her brother would wear. It had to be light and flexible, with burnished metal that reflected the Sun’s glory as his arrows and spear found their mark.

There were challenges to overcome, of course. Nothing could be too heavy, as that would leave him vulnerable to the killing swipe of a tail or a sudden kick. From years watching warriors in the Ring, she noted that most lasting injuries didn’t come from such impacts – those killed outright, no matter how heavy a hunter's armor may have been. To that end, she wanted something light. More than that, almost, she needed a way to protect his joints. Of those who caught those chance blows and mis-steps that put the body into strained positions, those were the worst: twisting of the more delicate ankle, wrist, and knee. The howling sound. The sight of limbs, positioned unnaturally until medical staff could reach the fallen warrior.

A wound like that was easily survived, but the hunter would never fight again.

For her brother to be removed from that which he loved beyond all else was absolutely untenable. Yes, beyond so many things, she feared his death - but she also relied and trusted in his skill. Her initial build would be simple, flashy, and kept absolutely secret. Long into the night, after the day's work had been approved and she was left with blessed, unsupervised quiet, she planned. When her parchments ran low she sketched and wrote on scraps of cloth leftover from the day's work. Once those, too, had turned black from her scribbling, she needed a new source of paper. Asking - _begging -_ for the Sun's forgiveness, she began to slip into her father's studio long after the man was asleep upstairs. 

The bookshelves towered above her, everything she could hope for. She raided her father's collection of tomes; but her interest was not in the words held within, but for the precious blank spaces she could find between lines, in margins, on title plates. Book after book she covered in notes, sketches, thoughts that she drew simple lines through when she’d revised and improved them. When age finally tempered her she regretted the literary defacement, of course. In that moment, though, she was possessed by a singular desire.

Once she felt secure that her plans would stand on their own, she needed only to find an artisan to work with. Working with cloth was second nature to her, but when it came to anything more sturdy, she required an expert. She quickly smeared a simple linen gown with soot from the evening’s expired fires, and completed the look by covering her golden hair beneath a loose cap. When finally she crept through the craftsmen’s district in the lower streets of the village, she felt as though she'd finally come home. 

For the most part, she was laughed out of every shop she brought her loaded satchel to. But one man, a rough-hewn fellow with features that were neither Oseram nor Carja, seemed interested. His name, she came to learn, was Udan. More Oseram than Carja - evident in the mustache that curled above his smiling teeth and dense arm hair that had not yet been blasted with furnace-heat.

All the same, there was a quickness in his eyes as he appraised her work, something that was very much Carja. The idea of such a union between tribes confused and frightened her. Instead she kept her eyes cast forward, expression level even if her emotions were not. Udan looked looked over her notes with an intensity that she recognized in herself, passion a thing that could always be recognized by those that shared it. He flipped the plans over a few more times, stroking at his dense whiskers. “This is damn good work, girl,” he said, setting the pages on a table that was surprisingly free of grit. “Never seen anything like it. Who’d you steal it from?”

Kharai fumbled for diplomatic words at the bluntness of the question, when what she really felt was a mix of outrage and surprise. “What are you–” she began, then decided that the best option with this man was to stoke her flames, rather than quench them. “They are of my own design, and if you’re not inclined to believe me, call down the guard. I wonder who they’ll be more likely to listen to: a half-blood Oseram or the daughter of the Rudash.”

The way the man’s eyes widened was so funny Kharai wished that instead of armor design, she’d spent time developing a picture-box that would let her immortalize such fleeting moments. Then, he laughed, from low in his belly. It was a warm sound that broke all sense of propriety and made her laugh, too.

“Fire and spit, girl, I don’t think I’ve ever met someone who _wasn’t_ a Carja noble that could cook up a story like that.” He leaned against his workbench, smile twitching beneath his bushy mustache. “Alright. Consider it a deal. Since you’re from such a high-and-mighty family you’ll have no trouble furnishing our little venture with the supplies we’ll need. I’ll make these pretty scribblings into something more useful.” The battle drum to his words, he clanged a fist against the solid steel of his breastplate, easy laugh roaring back to life.

The next months found Kharai living a sort of double life. During the day she continued her seamstress work and the social gatherings required of her, sneaking time during teas – _endless_ teas, filled with mindless conversations, finger sandwiches, overly-sweetened cakes, watered-down wines – to scribble new ideas down in notepads she smuggled beneath her flowing sleeves. She had a few thoughts that she was particularly excited about, inspired by the jointed carapace of a small insect that curled into a tight sphere when startled. Its chitinous plates slid smoothly over one another, not needing any obvious form of grease to maintain their easy movement.

In the evenings, face and clothing darkened with soot, she would creep from her estate to make her way down to the village. Whereas the upper levels of Meridian had all but gone quiet, that was not the case here. In the shadows, life was just beginning. Sometimes, it frightened her. Women leaned out of dimly lit doorways, their faces painted in raucous colors that were only a shadow of the more refined elegance she was used to seeing in the upper streets. Dressed in loose-fitting garments that showed the bared skin of their bodies, the draping cloth only barely covering the swelling of their breasts and the shadowed areas between their hips. At her passing, some of the women would laugh - but not unkindly. Kharai kept her eyes low on these trips – not so low as to keep from paying attention, a lesson learned only when a particularly astute guard interfered between her and a cutpurse – but lowered enough that she didn’t catch any attention.

Then, until dawn’s first waking cast a pale pink to the sky, she worked.

She was not permitted near the heavy machinery that Udan used to shape machine armor – “not girl’s work, your fingers are much too soft for that!” – but instead, she passed the time with drafting new designs. No longer limited to stealing pages from her father's library, she now filled hard-bound notebooks with every idea that flitted through her mind. When simple sketches were insufficient, she would cut thicker parchment into the shapes she'd been considering, allowing her to observe first-hand the way different components would move together. Only then, satisfied, would she pass her patterns to Udan to be crafted into the first draft of their newest creation.

Like this, they made a remarkable team. As exhausted as Kharai was, by the time she’d collapsed in her bed, it was with a sense of fulfillment that seamstressing alone had never given her.

Most thrilling of all, she was good at it. When she didn’t have work with needle and thread, when Udan was hard at work with their newest prototypes, she spent time at the Sun-Ring. More often than not, it wasn’t Mavat who fought. But that didn’t matter. Thrilling as it was to see her brother in his element, until she’d perfected her craft and presented him with a gift that would keep him safe where skill alone might fail, she wasn't ready to see him in a fight. During these bouts of machine versus a man who was merely a nameless face to her, however, she was more able to focus on the fighting. During those bouts, she kept her journal close at hand, noting every movement – the graceful turn of a hunter in mid-air after being knocked aside by an earth-shattering impact, the way his response would save his life - or, worse, would fail to do so. She noted the way that even the closest-fitted plates could still catch on any flowing drapery, presenting her with a brand new puzzle. Simplest was to keep things close to the skin and leave such embellishments off, but that went against Carja tradition. Her brother was a glorious warrior, and by her hand she would _not_ make him a dull one at that.

The worst days, though, were the fights when metal triumphed over flesh, and the mangled form of a hunter would be carted from the Ring after the machine had been secured by half a dozen ropecasters. The sight of blood on sand, the plaintive cries - or worse, silence - were so human in their anguish that their memories caught deep in her heart.

But it inspired her, too. To do better. To ensure that, when Mavat made a mis-step, it wouldn’t be the last he’d ever make.

The years passed like that, and as much as she tried to ignore it, Kharai found her mother’s presence more and more encroaching on her space. She tucked notes on armor beneath her pillow, strewed dressmaking garments across her workbench, even dropped some expensive bolts of cloth across the cutting table. Nothing at all to suggest her daughter’s double life. It was enough to calm her, at least for the time being.

But when the question came over dinner, spoken so bluntly that Kharai choked on a grape, there was no amount of preparation she could possibly have undertaken to come up with a satisfactory reply.

“So, have you begun your bleeding?” Lhavad asked casually, a man whose quick dark eyes belied any misconception his slight stature suggested. Kharai had known him as a distant father, content to spend time with his sons and let his daughter tend to the feminine arts.

“Father,” Mavat said reproachfully. A simple glance from the patriarch of the family silenced him, and Kharai stared pointedly at her meal. Her appetite had gone out the window.

The answer, of course, was that she had. It had been almost three summers come and gone, now, though she’d hidden it with her own clever stitching. To bleed, of course, was to transition from girl to woman, which meant that soon she’d metamorphize from woman to _wife_. The Sun had at least blessed her with a somewhat later maturation than many. Alas, her body had finally caught up with her age. She could run, of course. Perhaps, even, with Udan. But time with the man had told her that while he enjoyed her company his tastes were not for the fairer sex, and even were that not the case she thought that upsetting the wonderful balance their lives had taken was untenable.

Her mind scrambled like a caged animal. There was nothing she could do to delay the conversation, except perhaps to vomit prodigiously onto her father’s plate. But she’d not eaten enough for that, and her anxiety was a stone that weighed down her nausea even if she had.

So, left with no other option, she took the easiest route: The truth.

“I have.”

Lhavad didn’t seem to notice the panic that had stricken his daughter, or if he did, it was secondary to his own satisfaction. “Excellent. Clear away the dishes, Juran, that will be enough. Renva, dear light, will you escort Kharai to her quarters? There’s quite a lot to plan!”

For a long time, Kharai sat at her seat at the table. It was only her mother’s gentle hand on her shoulder that broke her from her horrified reverie, and she practically jumped out of her skin at the touch.

“There, there, my Sun.” Renva’s voice was soothing. It always had been, one of the first memories that Kharai could place. The older woman helped her daughter to her feet, leading her down the hall and up to Kharai’s chambers. “It’s a lot to take in all at once, but surely you knew the day would come. Your father will arrange a most auspicious partnership – our family has long been Blessed by the Sun, wait and see.”

* * *

It would be some time yet before Kharai had the chance to meet with any potential suitors. Lhavad filled his time writing missives to any noble family with unwed sons who had come of age. For her part, Kharai focused entirely on her work. She stitched until her fingers bled – endless gowns, but this time they were not suited for the other noble Khanes and their attendants. This time, the dress mold she used was suited to her own figure. It was strange, and she passed the days in a dreamlike trance.

Fine cloth arrived at their estate by the cartload, brocades and silks in a riot of colors that she normally would have delighted in and taken great pains in making the choices of which they would purchase. Instead, she let her mother make the selections. The colors were understated, letting the golden shine of her hair take center stage. Similarly, jewelry was commissioned: these, in green, to set the tones of her hazel eyes like the shining glow of the great Jewel.

Kharai took it all in stride, day by day.

But when, at long last, she was able to sneak away to her next meeting with Udan, she’d been holding it together for far too long. It came out in a rush as she exploded on the unsuspecting man. He caught her, just barely, before they crashed together into his workbench.

There wasn’t time to appreciate that yet. “Shhh, girl, shhh,” Udan soothed, his bear-like paws smearing machine oil through her hair while she pressed her tear-streaked face to his broad chest. “What’s got you wound tighter than a Snapmaw in a snare, huh?”

A few minutes passed before her choking sobs subsided enough that she could speak again. “It… Udan, _why_ was I born a woman? It’s not fair!”

“A great many things aren’t fair, girl,” he replied, but there was no reproach in his tone. “You certainly got the short end of things, that’s for sure. Here, wipe your nose.”

The cloth he offered was more filthy than her face must have been, and that made her giggle snottily. She blew into it all the same, then took a deep breath. “They seek to have me married.”

“That surprises you?”

Kharai glared through the dirtied cloth at him and he raised his hands, palms toward her, in a distinctly Carja sign of deference. “No, it’s just that…” she fumbled for the words, which frustrated her all over again. How many hours of her life had she wasted on social etiquette, on being well-spoken even under the most taxing circumstances? She took a deep breath. The smell of the workshop had a soothing effect on her, so she breathed it a few more times, until her head was no longer spinning. “...I thought I had a little longer.”

Udan slung his arm over her shoulder, a half-hug. “Ah, girl. Isn’t that just the way of things? Time makes fools of us all.” Her heart must have broken audibly, because his tone shifted to something quiet. “All we can do, then, is find ways to wiggle around what fate’s got in store. Maybe you’ll be a wife, but don’t you Carja look at art as a womanly kind of pastime? Get me your designs, and sure as steel, I’ll make ‘em real. Like this beauty.”

Finally, her head was cleared enough to turn her attention to the completed armor that had been waiting for her attention. It was gorgeous, and her hands flew to cover her mouth. “Udan, it’s – it’s _perfect!_ By the Sun, look at that leatherwork. How did you do that?”

The big man chuckled, and in the dim torch light of the workshop she couldn’t be certain, but she thought she saw a touch of color at his cheeks. “Friend of mine owed me a favor. One _hell_ of a favor. The skill you’ve got with design and cloth? Well, he’s that way with leather. Tanned it special, he says, won’t so much as wrinkle under the flame of a Bellowback. Didn’t see the need to test that, ‘course, but I believe him.”

Kharai was listening, of course, but only halfway. Her full attention was on the armor, the heft of it in her hands, the way the machine-metal plates bent and retracted into themselves so much like the funny little insect she’d seen. When she lifted it, she was amazed, too, at the lightness. “Udan, this is perfect,” she murmured, awed by the construction. In every bit of it, she saw herself. But it was his skilled hands that had brought it to life, so it was no surprise that she saw him there, too.

While she inspected his work, he came to stand beside her. “We make a good team, you and I. That’s not everything, though.”

From a workbench nearby, surprisingly clean given the oily and dusty mess of the rest of his shop, there was a burnished silver headpiece. Not a helmet – not even the sturdiest construction could save a man from a direct hit to the head from a machine – but a decoration every bit as much a Carja tradition as the fights in the Sun-Ring themselves.

But what gave her pause was the design. He’d fashioned it from Glinthawk plates, sanded the edges to form wings that would rise from the wearer’s temple, with a curved beak to sit on the forehead. All along it, veins of gold caught the light, Sunlight given solidity. A gasp escaped her, unbidden, as Udan passed it to her for inspection. With this on his brow, the shining metal plates glinting across his body, her brother would look more machine than human – but one more deadly than any the world had ever before seen.

“I take it you approve?” There was a laugh in Udan’s voice, and he gathered the rest of the armor to pass to her, folded neatly in a burlap cloth that wouldn’t attract attention while she made her way home. She nodded, not able to formulate the words, first hugging the bundle close to her breast - and then the man, squeezing him as though he was her own kin.

A thought, embarrassingly belated, sprang into her mind. She turned to face him, eyes wide. “How much do I owe you? Please, this is a masterpiece, it can’t possibly be any less than five thou—”

He cut her off with a wave of his hand that left no room for argument. “The next time that crazy brother of yours fights in the Sun-Ring? Have him wear it. It’ll be an advertisement for my work.” Beneath his mustache, his teeth flashed in a good-natured grin.

Slowly, a mirror smile crept across Kharai’s face, and she nodded. It was a deal. For the first time since her father’s pronouncement of her womanhood, she felt something other than fear.

She felt excitement.

* * *

For a few weeks, at least, the topic of her impending marriage was dropped in favor of Mavat’s upcoming fight. It was widely publicized – rumors spread that, somehow, a Behemoth had been captured, subdued in the holding cages beneath the much larger Sun-Ring at Sunfall. The family would travel to the vacationing grounds, where Araht and his wife had opened their home to the rest of their family.

For her part, Kharai hid the armor she intended to give her brother. He spent most of his days brawling with Scrappers, sharpening his reflexes against the agile machines. Every day that he went into the wilds, Kharai wasn’t far behind. Even a foe like a Scrapper could be dangerous – normally they weren’t aggressive, but if he came upon them while they were busy at work dismantling a Strider, they would defend their prey viciously. Plasma rays, useful in cutting metal, would part flesh with grisly consequences.

But Mavat moved like the wind. His preferred weapon was a ropecaster, which he used not to immobilize a foe but instead to strip away its most armored components, leaving gaping wounds that allowed his arrows to pass directly through the more tender entrails. She’d seen him take on a number of terrible machines this way, including a Trampler she’d been certain would catch him in a horrific blaze of superheated air.

In the end, though, holding one of its horns aloft, a burn extending from his cheek down his neck and over his shoulder, Mavat stood victorious. It was that scar that earned him his nickname: The Sunforged.

The combat was only days away when Kharai made her way to her brother’s chambers, knocking quietly at the door. If he was sleeping – or, more and more frequently lately, entertaining a guest of the female variety – she would simply come back later. But from within she heard movement, and a moment later, her brother swung the door open wide.

“My little Sunbeam!” he exclaimed, scooping her in his arms and laughing delightedly. Setting her down, he peppered her face with kisses – each cheek, her forehead, the tip of her nose. Long ago she’d lost all fear of his scarred visage, now seeing only the brother so full of love and light that she believed, beyond all doubt, showed he was the most blessed of their entire favored family. “Here to wish me luck? Little one, you should know by now that luck has nothing to do with a fight against a Behemoth. It’s simply his might against my own, and he’ll soon find himself wanting.”

It was the boisterous, good-natured confidence that she knew meant he was feeling his nerves. It was funny, the way he could turn anxiety into excitement, a skill she longed to possess.

Kharai clutched the bundle a little tighter to her breast. Then, shaking her head, she passed it to her brother. “No. Something better than luck.” 

There was confusion in his eyes, but that made way for pure wonder as he pulled back the canvas to reveal shining metal and embroidered silk. He lay the piece out across his bed, so that he could get a look at it in full, take in the incredible craftsmanship. “Kharai,” he breathed, touching the bandoleer of metal that crossed the chest. On the underside of each link, a prayer to the Sun had been etched, protection that extended beyond the physical. “This is incredible. I’ve never seen its like. Where did you get it?”

The way she answered this question would change the flow of her life, without doubt, and worry knotted her heart. “There is an artisan in the village named Udan." Finally, she mustered her courage. "He worked the metal and leather. But the cloth,” and she had reached the inflection point, from which there would be no turning back, “and the design… Those are my own. I’ve called it the blazon, to match you in boldness.”

It was hard to interpret the look on her brother’s face when he cupped her cheek with a rough, strong palm. She didn’t have long to try and figure it out before Mavat had gathered her in a crushing hug. Kharai buried her face in against his neck, breathed the smell of him – sweat and machine oil and something that was uniquely him – and knew that every decision she’d made to this point had been guided by the Sun itself, and as such, was fated.

* * *

It was a single night after their return to Meridian following Mavat's victory that their family was invited to the Palace of the Sun. There, they were to be honored by the Sun-King himself, so impressed had he been by Mavat’s performance against the Behemoth. The image of her brother, standing atop the fallen beast, bow raised toward the Sun and her blazon shining bright, was one she’d hold for the rest of her life.

That image was the one she held in her mind as they made their way across the great bridge that lead to the Palace, guards standing at attention along the path. To be honored in such a way was nearly unheard of. But there was a rumor that there was more to this meeting than just a celebration of Mavat’s conquest, that somehow Kharai had also drawn the royal eye. His armor – _her_ armor, her blazon – had been a subject quick on the tongues of nobles, wondering where it had come from.

Of course, she would direct their attention to Udan as soon as she had the chance to breathe. This meeting had wedged a shard in her plans, though. Her parents had learned about what she’d been sneaking out at night to do, and she still didn’t know how they felt about the truth of her role in the blazon’s creation. A conversation to come after their audience with the Radiant Hivas, of course.

Meeting the Radiants was an experience so terrifying that Kharai found she kept her attention on food she was too nervous to eat, but she couldn’t help casting glances at them. Not at Hivas – but at his son, Jiran.

They’d all seen him from a distance, of course. But seated opposite his father, he cut a handsome figure. He had dark eyes that gleamed even in the low light, calculating and quick. What troubled her the most was that every time she glanced to him, those eyes were on her. She couldn’t focus on the conversation occurring between her father and the Radiant Hivas, instead picking at her food and trying to decide if Jiran had been smiling without risking another glance.

But then she heard her name, and she was forced to look up again, fork forgotten in her hand. It had fallen from the lips of His Luminance, and it took her mind a full five heartbeats for the words to begin to make sense.

“Your great house has quite the reputation, Lhavad, and Mavat has shown such might that he will be celebrated at the next great solstice. As I'm certain you have surmised, that is not why I have requested your presence.” He shifted, nodding toward his son. “Your daughter Kharai’s ingenuity is quite remarkable, and in her I see the cast of the Sun’s favor. I understand that she is of an age to be wed. Our decree - the decree of the Sun - is that our houses be joined, and Prince Jiran take her as his wife.”

Somehow, Kharai didn’t pass out, though for a moment it felt like a very real possibility. This time she didn’t try to steal a glance. Now, she looked directly at the younger Radiant, and saw that he _was_ smiling. It wasn’t a cruel smile, but it was deeply satisfied. Whatever it was he saw when he looked upon her, he liked.

In turn, she found that she liked _that_. Marriage had been something she regarded as terrifying, and perhaps on some level that was still the case. But marriage to handsome, clever, _Radiant_ Jiran… that was something entirely different. There was no question that the union would take place, but what surprised Kharai was that she was no longer troubled by the notion.

* * *

Of all the noble houses, there was no question that the Khane Rudash were blessed by the Sun beyond compare.

Their daughter, fair-haired Kharai, was wed to the Radiant Jiran in a ceremony that set Meridian alight at first light on one day, the Sun’s softest rays ushering in the beginning of a new union between its heir and his chosen. The celebration lasted long into the night, only coming to an end at the subsequent dawn. For Kharai and the Prince, of course, their public celebration ended with the Sun’s setting, when she was introduced to a new aspect of the Sun’s attentions.

That, too, she found to her liking. Perhaps being wedded was not the worst thing that could happen to her.

Their union was one to be cheered, many Carja relieved that the young prince – with his rakish reputation – had finally settled on a wife, and Araman’s line would continue in legitimacy. For him to take a wife instead of a consort indicated to the population that he was beginning to plan ahead, and Kharai was in many ways a natural choice. Her family was well regarded, her beauty considered by many unparalleled – and beside the tanned, dark-haired Radiant, they were a striking portrait of both halves of nature, joined.

Kharai’s life was changed overnight. While she no longer had the freedom to work with Udan in designing new armor, what she’d _already_ done quickly became popular. The Rudash Blazon was the original, and it quickly became the founder of a new dynasty of Carjan armor. Udan became wealthy beyond imagining, as he’d seen it, and pieces that were made by his own hand were as prized among nobles as her dresses had once been. Kharai felt a sense of pride for her once-friend, though their lives had diverged. Even if she’d had the time to collaborate with him, she knew the scandal would have been more than she could chance. In that way, at least, marriage limited her. 

That wasn’t to say that she no longer designed new armor. Radiant Hivas was a ruler with an interest in the expansion of their armies, especially given the growth of neighboring tribes, particularly the encroachment of the southern Tenakth. The Sun-King commissioned his daughter-in-law personally to design new armor for their growing armies, a task she undertook with a flourish. 

The challenge presented by this was novel, as the components needed to be gathered in great quantities and able to deflect human weapons. Strider flank plates seemed like a reasonable starting point, but the armor had to provide a great deal more coverage than her blazon. Her experience in creating armor for her brother had given her practice thinking about the ways a machine would strike, but not another man. She spent her days sketching, sewing, watching soldiers on the training ground, and thinking.

Nights, though, she would slip into Jiran’s quarters, or he into her drafting room. Their bed was merely another training ground, and quickly she found that the whole of the palace worked just as nicely for their unions. Sometimes there would be a foreign smell on him, but that didn’t bother her – after all, he was _her_ husband, and there was nothing unusual about a noble having paramours. As long as later, she was the one who would curl in Jiran’s arms, she was satisfied.

Unsurprisingly, it was less than a year after her marriage that she found herself with child.

Kadaman came into the world easily, with fighting limbs and a strong voice to match. Jiran laughed from the side of the birthing bed to see his infant son already such a warrior. Their Rising Dawn had his mother’s golden hair, but with the smoothness of his father’s. As a babe he was fussy, quick to bouts of crying, opinionated long before he had the words to express those opinions. When he was quiet though, he was soft as dawn, gentle warmth a promise of the heat of the day to come. 

Because, oh, the day would always be hot when it came to the growing Kadaman. He was wild, resistant to taming. That was a wonderful indicator that he was a strong, glorious heir to the Sun, when finally it came time for him to wear its blazing mantle. From the time he was old enough to wield a stick, he would spar with his uncle Mavat. While Kharai was somewhat troubled by the militaristic fascinations of her growing boy, she accepted that it was important for a prince to be skilled in martial arts. All the same, while he bore his scrapes and bruises like medals, to her they were scars on her heart.

That glorious golden hair of his often presented her with a challenge, especially as he grew more active. It had a tendency to tangle, and his strong wails of defiance toward having it combed out – or cut to prevent tangling in the first place – filled the halls. Soon it had grown long, and he would only submit to having it tied back from his eyes or cut once it presented a vulnerability in the fighting ring.

His performance in the ring, after all, was his singular obsession. Kadaman was lightning on his feet, quicker still at learning to use the movement of his small body to give power to his blows. He was relentless, too, drilling every day, until he was so tired that he had to be carried out of the training field, often fast asleep in his uncle’s arms as they made their way back to the palace. He loved it, lived for it. When he grew he had to work twice as hard to maintain that quickness, but in response he put in five times the effort. The anguish of her life was watching his victories in the ring and wishing his attention was as easily dedicated to the humanities.

Those were more challenging for the frenetic Kadaman. His attention strayed easily, and he struggled with both reading and writing glyphs no matter how many tutors worked with him. Music, so sacred to the Carja, seemed only to bore him unless it was the percussive beat of steel on steel, the thrum of a bowstring released from full draw. Lessons became a frightening affair, with Jiran easily becoming enraged by his son’s obstinate refusal to simply sit and learn. Kharai found she feared her husband’s fiery temper, and frantically sought to find a way to pacify him and tame their unruly child.

But before that fight could come to a head, there was a new change to their lives, one that distracted her son and husband equally: Avad.

Where Kadaman came into the world fighting, Avad’s birth was a different kind of struggle - both for mother and child. He arrived early, coming with an unseasonably cold day, and when the pressure in her had finally eased and Kharai was left exhausted, it was an achingly long time before his thin voice rose to fill the room. He was given a quick cleaning before he was passed to her, and a part of her was afraid to hold him too tightly, small as he was.

From very far away, Jiran asked the midwife a question, but Kharai’s attention was entirely focused on the tiny boy clutched to her breast. While the voices in the room were soft and worried, her babe looked around with huge eyes that shone with a curious intensity, as though he was more occupied with understanding his new world than with fighting his sudden separation from his mother. So when the midwife quietly suggested that they be prepared for disaster, Kharai felt no fear. Instead she touched her little son’s face and smiled when he gripped her thumb, those huge dark eyes unsteadily coming to focus on it, his little lips pulling together with concentration.

“Hello, Avad,” she whispered, voice as soft as his first cries had been. “Hello.” In all her life, never before had her heart felt as full as it did in the moment he looked from her finger and into her face, his mewling whimper a greeting in reply. 

She never prepared for disaster, as the midwife had warned she should, and disaster never came. Instead, Kharai was gifted with the chance to get to know her new child. Avad contrasted Kadaman every bit as much as she contrasted Jiran. With his hair a dark tangle of curls and his nature quiet and serious, she felt that the Sun had given her each of its glorious faces in her children. While Kadaman exhausted himself with constant physicality, Avad seemed to want to work his little mind and fill it with as much as was possible for one child to learn. 

Before he had speech, he would cry until she’d lift him – then, he’d continue to fuss until she began to tell him stories. At first, she told him the stories she remembered from her childhood: tales of the Sun, of his ancestor Araman and the great mantle he’d been born beneath, of her own family. When she’d exhausted these stories, she began to make them up instead. The best moments in all her life came when he was old enough to smile, a beam of toothless joy that turned his face into a radiant beacon brighter than the Sun at noon. It was after her stories and her gentle touch that finally that clever mind of his would slow enough to let him rest. More often than not she did not return to the marital bed, instead tucked into a nook at the corner of Avad’s room, sleeping curled tight around him as though they were jointed plates of machine armor.

So their days and nights passed, Kharai teaching Avad about the world from the protected quiet of the palace. When he grew, as babies tend to do, her arms strained to hold him for the long periods it took for him to finally find sleep. So she grew stronger in turn so that her son – her Sun – would still know the comfort she’d given him for his whole life.

During the times she was too tired to make up a story, either from the day’s challenges with Kadaman’s tutoring or from helping Jiran with his ailing father, she would simply describe the room to him. They would walk the palace, with her naming each thing he’d reach toward from the cradle of her arms. Sometimes she would deliberately tell him the wrong word, just to hear the sweet music of his giggling.

He was only barely walking when his grandfather, the Radiant Hivas, conceded the throne to his son. In so doing, he made Kadaman and Avad into princes, Kharai a Queen, and Jiran – before the lord only of their family – the leader of all Carja. The weight of her newfound responsibility should have felt crushing, but the scope of her world had not changed. Her family had been, and still was, all that mattered.

A year after the coronation, Kharai and Avad stood at the window together, looking out at the Spire. Avad had grown to be too awkward to hold for long, but the boy didn’t seem to be too bothered, because his new height let him look out the window under his own power. The sight on that day must have been as it was the day Araman led their predecessors to Holy Meridian, Glinthawks circling its metallic rise of the Spire and perched upon its peak.

“See there, my little Avi?” She extended a hand, pointing to one of the machines where it beat its wings, rising effortlessly into the air. “Sparrows! A whole flock of them!”

“Mama,” he said to her, dark eyes serious. “Those are _Snapmaws._ ”

His response caught her off-guard. First, because it was the wrong answer, and Avad was never wrong. That was when she saw that the glimmer in his eye wasn’t of his usual seriousness, but of humor. He was turning her game right back on her. But more surprising, still, was that she’d never once spoken to him about Snapmaws. Where under all the Sun’s light had he learned that?

So she took a chance. “Snapmaws? Avi, lovely glimmer, look again. I was mistaken about sparrows, but look! See there? A Trampler!”

The game was on. Avad shook his head emphatically. “No. _Defiantly_ no.” She saw no need to correct him, because his mispronunciation felt very right to her, for all that it wasn’t. “They’re Behemoths.”

In that way, Kharai learned that her five-year-old had, somehow, taught himself to read glyphs. There was a book her brother had gifted the boy for the Sun’s memory of his birth, filled with sketches of the machines that roamed the Sundom. How it was that he’d taught himself to do something her ten-year-old still struggled with, without her notice, boggled her mind. How different the pair were, yet how perfectly they matched one another. 

“Ah, I see now,” she said, hugging him close. She buried her nose in his unruly curls and breathed the sweet smell of his hair: the same clean soap that her mother had once used for Kharai herself, but also something that was uniquely him - the smell of Sun-baked stone and summer showers. “My eyesight must be failing me, I don’t know how it is that I could have mistaken Behemoths for sparrows.”

There was that seriousness in him again, because he twisted in her arms so that he could look up at her again. “It’s ok, mama. I’ll look for you.”

Light, brilliant and dazzling, filled her until she thought she might be burnt by her attempt to hold it.

But not all was peaceful. Jiran didn’t approve of the way Kharai coddled Avad, and disapproved of his younger son’s disinclination toward the fighting ring. While he’d been displeased by Kadaman’s reluctance toward reading and writing, he was even more irritable about Avad’s complete disinterest and occasional outright fury at the idea of learning to fight. Those moments of anger coming from gentle Avad caught her off guard, but they never lasted long. After all, Jiran’s fury was a roaring furnace compared to his son’s tiny sparking, and Avad’s fear won out every time.

There, too, was a matter that one of Kharai’s handmaidens had brought to her attention: a Sun-kiss on her shoulder, darker than she’d remembered seeing before, had appeared. But the spots across her body were as mercurial as the seasons, ebbing and flowing from one month to the next. She covered the mark with makeup, and banished it from her thoughts. But then one day it was bleeding.

Jiran frowned at it. “Cover that, Kharai,” he told her, his eyes uncharacteristically hard. “I don’t like the look of it.”

She didn’t, either. Until it healed, she wore a scarf about her shoulders. She missed the warming Sun terribly. It would just be for a little while though, she was sure, until the wound scabbed and left her skin as smooth as it had always been. But when she had her handmaiden inspect it next – she didn’t want to offend her husband’s eyes with the look of the thing again – the woman’s expression was puzzled.

“Your Lightness,” she said, softly, and angled the looking-glass so that Kharai could get a glimpse of her shoulder. There was the spot, bigger now, the surface raised but not scabbed. There was a malevolence in the look of it, and her heart caught in her throat.

In great secrecy, a healer was sent for. The man inspected the spot for some time, with Avad and Kadaman watching from the doorway. Kharai smiled reassuringly at them when she saw the way that Avad was standing half behind his brother, worrying at the corner of his thumbnail. Finally, the healer's inspection was concluded. “You’ve been keeping it covered?”

Kharai nodded. “Its sight displeases His Luminance,” she admitted, feeling a shame she couldn’t place.

“Well, that’s the problem.” The healer chuckled, shaking his head. “What you need is light – not shadow. His Luminance will understand that his wife’s health takes precedence. Take at least an hour in the Sun a day – it may blister, but that is simply the sickness leaving you. It won’t be long at all before it’s but a memory.”

With that reassurance, Kharai waved her children to her side. Kadaman looked down at his brother, beaming. “See? I told you to stop being so dumb.”

“Dawn,” Kharai said, voice as hard as it could be toward him, “don’t say such things. Avi was worried, and there’s no shame to be had in that. Worrying can save you – if we hadn’t worried, I wouldn’t know what to do to recover, now would I?”

Kadaman scoffed just a little. “When I’m King, he can do my worrying for me.”

Another reproach was quick to her tongue, but when she saw Avad nodding solemnly, she laughed instead. “Oh, my loves. What favor the Sun has given all Carja, to have such promising young heirs.”

They beamed at her, Kadaman with a broad grin that showed where he’d recently lost an incisor, Avad more muted but no less pleased to have had his worries proven mere silliness. Inwardly, Kharai vowed that she would do exactly as the healer had ordered, without fail – she didn’t want to see that worried tilt to her youngest’s eyebrows again.

* * *

But with time, she wondered if she would ever see them set in any other way. An hour of Sunlight each day seemed to do little to help, nor did two – she would lay in the terraced gardens until her skin reddened painfully, but still, the dark stain remained. It became further raised, too, and then its borders extended like a rival tribe. More and more frequently, too, it would bleed painfully. Another spot, this one on her hip but otherwise a perfect twin of the first, appeared next. When direct Sunlight became too painful for her burned and peeling skin to bear, she would instead just rest in the solarium, letting the indirect light warm her.

Because more than the Sun, she found, she needed the rest. Perhaps it was her body’s healing process, much in the same way that a chill left a person sapped and tired. But this was a tiredness that seemed to have no solution. Avad was her constant companion. When she grew too tired even to care for her hair, he took over without being asked. That was a small mercy - she hadn’t been able to bear the thought of troubling Jiran with such a mundane and humiliating need. While Kadaman would certainly have been happy to help, his hands were more practiced at fighting, and her hair had grown brittle, her scalp sensitive.

No, she needed the touch of her youngest, her beloved Avad. While she dozed he would draw a comb of bone through her long tresses, working out any knots with attentive patience. Where once she had lulled him to sleep with only the power of her voice, now he spoke to her in a soft tone until the pain that filled her limbs abated enough to allow her to sleep. He told her stories, many she recognized as those of her own creation, others that must have been his. 

Sometimes, too, he would sing: hymns of the Faith, calls to the Sun’s mercy, tunes without words that she recognized from his lessons but played with his voice instead of his Sun-Harp. After all, he couldn’t play it when he was brushing her hair. After he was finished, he would braid it, wrapping it around her head. Even when there were no knots to work out, no grime to clean, they would repeat the ritual. Sometimes it seemed that days passed between her seeing anyone but Avad, though he reported that wasn’t the case – she just had a hard time remembering things, she was so tired.

And oh, too, she was in such pain. That, she couldn’t express with words, but she knew she must have betrayed it in her sleep. When she remembered seeing Jiran, his expression was tight with a grief that she wanted to believe was premature. But her skin felt aflame, such that when he so much as brushed his lips across her brow, she would wince under the touch.

So he stopped touching her entirely, though she longed to feel his caress again. She wasn’t able to hide the cursed patches from his sight as they spread over her body, dark and angry, setting her nerves alight with a pain more ferocious and unceasing than even birthing had been. They made preparations of dreamwillow and hintergold, and for a time, they brought her relief enough to sleep. But it was hard for her to find the energy to eat, and both medicines left her so addled that she found she would rather bear her pain to the best of her ability, to try and enjoy the moments of clarity the Sun gifted her. Eventually, and with great regret, she had Kadaman cut her braid entirely – her pain had grown to the point that she couldn’t stand the feeling of the brush and its light pulling at her scalp, even when Avad seemed to be trying to barely touch her.

The days passed without any delineation, dark and light losing all clarity. Kharai slept and woke and sometimes seemed to do both at once. Sometimes she was alone, and sometimes she would see the faces of the men she loved.

No matter how much she was pained, no matter how she struggled even to think, that never changed: that fiery, consuming love. They were her light when even the Sun in the sky seemed to be absent, and through her pain, Kharai knew joy. When she couldn’t find words, she could still find smiles for them, and they smiled in turn, she and they each through their own pain.

One day, alone, she found she had a sense of clarity. The Sun was low in the sky, painting the solarium in rich reds and oranges. Though the air promised a chill night to come, the stone walls and floor of the palace held the heat of the day, keeping her warm and comfortable even without a blanket. Sparrows chirped from the banister, and some memory of family swam into her mind. She thought to send for her Radiants, so that they could enjoy a meal together. But she was tired, and needed a moment to rest before they arrived. The birds sang, took to wing. Kharai closed her eyes. 

The Sun set.

**Author's Note:**

> i just thought it was a shame we didn't get more information about avad's mother so i kinda went fucking Feral on a word document and this appeared! i am very nervous about publishing it!
> 
> for those wondering, in this canon, avad was 7 at the time of his mother's death. the derangement began one year later. Shout-out to kit and jillian for betaing and also helping me math out some ages based on the limited in-game/databook info.
> 
> beautiful art is from [Bandit!](https://www.instagram.com/solonote/)


End file.
